


Some Nights.

by AshleyJinxxBiersack



Series: The Faceless Ones. [5]
Category: Frostiron - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fury's a dick, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:03:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3380810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshleyJinxxBiersack/pseuds/AshleyJinxxBiersack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night is becoming the longest of Tony's life.<br/>Most of the team are getting some sleep.<br/>Bucky is working hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was late. Incredibly late. And Tony still wasn't going to get some sleep, even though his entire team had advised him to do so.

The spare rooms in his home had been occupied by various team members, and there were also people on the couches in the living room due to this house not being designed to have a whole team of guests.

The SHIELD team had all gone home aside from Fury and Hill, who were staying in a van outside the house. It was a little before two in the morning and Tony was sat on the floor with a pot of coffee to keep him going, and a laptop perched on his legs. He was watching the video over and over, begging his mind to come up with something that'd be helpful to him rescuing Loki.

Bruce had managed to find some data worth looking into before he'd gone to bed that night. He'd shown Bucky around the stuff in the workshop, and briefly explained how it was operated properly, then he'd handed over the data and a pager button, telling Bucky to call him through it as soon as he found even the smallest thing worth looking into.

Bucky and Tony were currently the only ones awake.

Thor, Rhodey and Sam had occupied the couches while the rest of the team had gone up to the rooms. Natasha and Clint doubled up and took the first spare room, Steve and Bruce had taken the second one, and Tony's room was left abandoned in favour of coffee and work fuelled by worry. Tony had a dying urge to be in his workshop distracting himself with building stuff, like he usually would, but he couldn't. He didn't want to disturb the ex-assassin who was trying to help him out in case he accidentally freaked or something. Tony didn't know how to deal with that other than fight back. Bucky's relapses were Steve's responsibility, not Tony's, so he didn't want to risk provoking one. That'd be bad.

The entire time he tried to focus on working, Tony couldn't help but think of Loki, the raven-haired God he'd fallen so deeply in love with. He kept wondering if he was okay. He kept trying to convince himself that this was just a bad dream that he'd wake up from at any second to find Loki right beside him with a worried frown on his face, as he always did when Tony had been having a nightmare. He tried to tell himself that Loki was just fine and he wasn't hurt, but he couldn't. He couldn't get past the fear that something was horribly wrong wherever Loki currently was. That somewhere being outside of the Nine Realms that Thor had told him and the team about.

The Thunder God had explained everything he believed the team would understand about the Nine Realms, and he explained that Heimdall had constant watch over all nine of them. Heimdall had lost sight of Loki during the attack, but thought that he was just perhaps out of his sight again, as he had been many times before. But then, of course, it was confirmed that he was no longer within the realms. Heimdall had sworn to alert Thor to any movement that was out of place within the realms if he saw something no matter how small the movement, because even a small movement could mean Loki was there.

Tony was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of machinery shifting slightly, and he realised he'd started to drop off when a pillow was placed at the arch of his back just to make sure he didn't go stiff if he fell asleep on the floor.

"Sir, Mr. Barnes has requested your presence in the workshop." JARVIS's voice made Tony jump as it ripped the silence, but he was glad to now have something to occupy himself. He poured himself another mug of coffee, then made his way downstairs to find the man with a metal arm.

He tapped his code into the keypad and stepped through the door as it slid open. The hissing of the action alerted Bucky to another presence, and he looked around, giving Tony a light, sleepy smile. His shoulder length hair had been pulled back into a small pony tail on the back of his head, but there was still short strands around his face.

"JARVIS said you needed my company down here," Tony said, a light, teasing tone to his voice.

"Totally said that," Bucky muttered, sipping a drink from the water he had in front of him as a smile pulled the corner of his lips up.

"You can sleep at some point tonight if you want, Bucky. No one is forcing you to stay awake," Tony said, taking a seat on the workbench beside him.

"I now that," Bucky assured him. "But I don't want to sleep until I've found something useful." He paused for a second, getting something running on the compute before sitting back in his seat and looking at Tony. "I've never had someone close to me go missing like this, but I can imagine how shit it'd be if it happened. I wouldn't be able to bare it if something happened to Steve, and he's just my best friend. I can't ever imagine how hard it is for you, seeing as this Loki guy is.. is someone you're in love with."

"You're good at this, kid," Tony chuckled.

"Kid? I'm like seventy years older than you, Stark," Bucky scoffed. "But really, it's not hard to see how much you love him. You're doing all this for him. You're worried out of your mind for him and you're on the verge of having been awake for two days straight."

"How do you know how long I've been awake?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Steve told me you don't sleep when you're determined to get something done," Bucky explained. "And I've been talking to your... computer thing. JARVIS, that is. I've been getting used to him being there 'cause I've never been around one before, so I've been talking to him."

"JARVIS?" Tony questioned.

"He is correct, Sir. Mr. Barnes and I have been discussing many things while he adjusts to my presence," JARVIS confirmed.

"Huh. Well whaddaya know," Tony mused, smiling lightly. "You're okay with him being around, right?"

"It's weird, but I'll be fine. It just means I don't need to get off my ass if I need someone unless I really have too," Bucky chuckled. "Anyway, I need to ask you a favour, and I also need your opinion."

"Shoot," Tony said, quickly changing his mind when he saw the look on Bucky's face. "No! No! Don't listen to me, that was a shit word choice! I'm sorry! Just tell me what you need and I'll see what I can do."

"You're lucky I promised Steve to avoid hurting you," Bucky grumbled, shaking his head. "Anyway. This isn't hugely important right now, but when you get a few minutes, could you take a look at my arm please? It's making whirring noises that it _shouldn't_ be making and I don't know why."

"You got it," Tony said, grabbing the nearest toolbox and dragging it closer to him. "What opinion did you want? I'm pretty sure I have plenty you can choose from."

"You're hilarious," Bucky said, rolling his eyes before sitting forward and pulling up a screen. "Look at this for me. I'm pretty damn sure I know what it is, but I want a second opinion in case I missed something. I'd have called Bruce, but JARVIS informed me that you were still up when I asked if anyway was awake, so I figured I'd leave Bruce sleep and call you down."

"What am I looking at here? Talk me through it," Tony said, shifting so he was perched on the edge of the desk where the systems were set up to get a better look. Bucky started to point with his flesh hand.

"This is a bunch of shit from the atmosphere around your house from before the creepy faceless dude appeared on your property. Everything is reading normal, and nothing is out of place. You with me?" Bucky asked. Tony nodded, then watched as another set of readings appeared over it. "Now, the ones in green that just appeared are what showed up when that guy did. He didn't show up until an hour after you left the premises."

"Clearly he wanted to make sure I wasn't going to randomly show up and ruin his plans," Tony said.

"Yeah, but that's one thing I don't understand here," Bucky said, shifting slightly so he could look at Tony better. "He waited an hour to confirm you were gone, but then didn't strike until you were almost ready to head back. Why? Why did he wait so long? Were there specific orders he followed? Was he playing games with your boyfriend first? There are so many damn questions coming out of this that we can't answer until we find this guy."

"Damn," Tony mumbled, biting his lip in thought. "Did you get anything else? What about these green readings? What is this? It's radiation of some kind, I know that much from just looking at the spectrum."

"Gamma," Bucky said. "But it's faint gamma, and there's something else with it."

"Bruce is the best person to see about gamma, so keep note of that for him. But anything else? I'll give it a look. Try and bring up the coded readings for whatever it is that's with the gamma," Tony said, moving his arm out of the way of the screen. Bucky tapped about a bit and brought up a shitload of coding, making Tony sigh and run a hand through his short, dark hair. "It's going to be a long night."

"It already is," Bucky agreed, leaning back and closing his eyes for a second.

"Hey, pull your shirt off for a bit," Tony said, getting up so he could sit on a footstool with his toolbox. "I think better with coding while I'm working on something, so while we work, I'll fix your arm up for you."

"Thanks," Bucky said, smiling slightly. He sat upright and pulled his shirt over his head, muscles flexing as he moved. Tony couldn't deny that Bucky was pretty good looking for a man who'd be in his nineties now. "You want me to keep going over stuff with you?"

"Yes. Just keep talking through everything. You might find that you've missed something you didn't see before if you talk to someone else about it," Tony said, pulling open the plate at the top of Bucky's arm and starting to poke around inside the mechanisms. "And briefly tell me what's up with this arm. What can and can't I do with it?"

"Obviously you can't take it off my body completely," Bucky deadpanned. "It's welded in place, as much as I hate the damn thing. You also can't completely shut it off for longer than an hour at a time, because you'd have to recalibrate my entire left side if you did that. Don't ask, I'll explain when you upgrade it for me in the future. You can immobilise it, but you have to be careful because the defence reflex mechanism still hasn't recalibrated fully to stop seeing immobilisation for long periods of time as a threat."

"Who's handy work is this? There seems to be a lot of dangerous triggers here," Tony said thoughtfully, still pulling wires around.

"Russians," Bucky said, shaking his head. "Wanted to be thorough with their work."

"Morons," Tony said, shaking his head in return. "Don't fret, Bucky. I can recalibrate it no problems when the time to upgrade comes. Might have to do the complete shutdown for that though, because if your whole left side would need recalibration, then your whole left side would likely need the same sort upgrade because of the reflex thing."

Bucky groaned in annoyance, flexing his metal hand slightly, making it whir unhappily. "I fuckin' hate this thing. Do you know of anyone who'd be able to get rid of it completely? Like, give me a second flesh arm again?"

"That'd get complicated because of the welding. I think you're left shoulder would've suffered too much damage for that," Tony explained sadly.

"Right, got it," Bucky sighed.

"Move it again. Left arm. Let me listen to the whirring," Tony said. Bucky nodded, flexing his hand a few times until Tony told him to stop. "I know exactly what's up. This is aftermath from Fury's short-circuit. Clearly he's done it way too many times and it's fried a circuit board. I'm going to have to immobilise it and replace a circuit. Might have to temporarily shut it off, too. How does it shut down?"

"You gonna use this knowledge against me at all?" Bucky asked unsurely. Tony frowned.

"Why the hell would I do that?" he asked. "You're not a threat to me, Barnes. I'm not afraid of you and neither are the rest of the team. You wouldn't be here if we didn't trust you. And Steve would kill me if I used your own damn arm against you anyway."

"Just gotta check, man. I don't know who the fuck I'm trusting anymore," Bucky said, irritated with himself.

"Hey, it's cool. I get it, I really do," Tony assured him. "Nothing's going to happen to you while you're here, Bucky. Promise."

"Thanks," he sighed. "There's another mechanism where my wrist is. It's small and slightly separate to the rest of the arm. It needs bit of jiggling to activate, but when it does, it'll give you the sixty second space to shut it down before recalibration kicks in."

"Got it," Tony said, already opening up the panel on his wrist. "This blue thing here?"

"That's it," Bucky confirmed.

"Okay, got it. JARVIS keep a timer. If his arm has been off for more than forty-five minutes, tell me," Tony said. "Complete shutdown in three... two..."

Bucky sighed, cringing slightly when the sound of the system shutting down filled his ears. When he tried to move the arm, it wouldn't co-operate. He was vulnerable now, but Tony had promised not to do anything bad, so he had to trust him.

"You alright there kid?" Tony checked, seeing the unsure expression in his eyes. "I can turn it back on and find a way around it if you want me too. If this is too much just say something."

"No. Just do it. I'll be fine," Bucky insisted. Tony nodded unsurely, but quickly started getting to work.

"Keep talking to me about that radiation shit. We need to get it figured out so I can find Loki. I don't know what the hell they're doing with him right now and I don't think I want to know either," Tony said. Bucky immediately launched into his theories and the things he'd found so far, pausing when Stark had something to say about something he'd said. Together, they surprisingly got a lot done, bringing them closer to finding some answers. And within half an hour of getting work done, Tony had Bucky's arm turned back on and recalibrating to accept the new circuit replacement into the system.

The two felt comfortable with each other, and Bucky even went as far as considering Stark a friend.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve was first to wake the following morning. He spent a bit of time in his room drawing first, seeing as he was awake at sunrise and wanted to capture the sunrise in art form. At around eight, he made his way downstairs, finding Rhodey in the kitchen making coffee. The two shared smiles.

"Hey, how did you sleep?" Steve asked, stepping into the kitchen.

"Pretty good. Stark has comfy couches," Rhodey chuckled. "D'you want some coffee, Cap?"

"Please, yeah, that'd be great," Steve said, ruffling his hair up a bit. "Have you seen Tony yet?"

"No, I haven't actually," Rhodey said, handing Steve a mug of hot coffee as a small frown formed on his face. "JARVIS, where's Stark?"

"Sir is in the workshop with Mr. Barnes," JARVIS answered.

"How long has he been down there?" Steve asked.

"Around six and a half hours now," JARVIS responded.

"Doing what?" Rhodey asked suspiciously.

"Both were working on data Mr. Barnes had started to collect while Sir fixed an issue with his left arm. Both have now been sleeping since around six AM."

"They're asleep," Steve repeated, raising an eyebrow at Rhodey before heading down to the workshop. Rhodey followed. As JARVIS had said, both men were fast asleep. Bucky was still sat in the chair Steve had left him in the night before, legs now propped up on the table and his left arm still handing loosely beside him while his right was laying across his stomach. Tony was on the floor with his back against the leg of one of the desks, and there was a toolbox sat beside him with what Rhodey could only guess to be a fried circuit board on his leg.

"Well I'll be damned," Rhodey mused, punching in his code. The sliding doors disturbed Tony, making him snort slightly as he woke up, but Bucky slept on.

"Morning, sunshine," Steve chuckled. "Sleep okay down there?"

"Not bad, actually," Tony mumbled, yawning as he got up, grabbing the circuit board and placing it on the desk behind him. "What time is it?"

"Almost quarter past eight," Rhodey informed him. "What were you doing down here? You were working upstairs last I checked."

"I know. Bucky had JARVIS call me down here. Said he needed help with something to do with the data," Tony said with a shrug. "He also needed me to take a look at his arm for him 'cause it was whirring in a very unhealthy way. Turns out that because of Fury's bug, one of the circuit boards had burnt out. Needed to replace and recalibrate it. All fixed up now though."

"Thanks Tony," Steve said, smiling lightly before placing his coffee down and stepping forward, gently giving Bucky a nudge. "Buck? Hey, Bucky, wake up."

Bucky's left hand came to life first, snapping up and gripping Steve's wrist. Steve jumped, but didn't try to fight it. Clearly this had happened before.

"Whoa, Bucky, slow down there kid, it's just Capsicle" Tony said. The rest of Bucky woke up properly, and with a tired, sheepish smile, Bucky let go of Steve.

"Morning," he greeted, standing and stretching, then grabbing his shirt, seeing as he realised he was still very shirtless. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Just wanted to see if everything is okay down here, since we were informed Stark was sleeping down here," Steve said. Bucky nodded.

"He fixed my arm and helped me with shit," Bucky admitted. "We're getting somewhere. It's not much, but we have something that might help us a bit."

"A bit is definitely better than nothing. That's great, Buck," Steve said. Rhodey nodded in agreement.

"What's all that?" Rhodey asked, motioning to the screens that were still decoding stuff.

"Radiations of all kinds," Bucky informed them. "Gamma is there a little, so I'm gonna ask Bruce to look when he gets up and has had coffee or whatever. The rest of it is stuff Tony could kind of figure out, but really needs Thor to look at since it doesn't match anything from Earth. Or.. Midgard, I think Thor called it."

"Yeah, Midgard. You got it kid," Tony laughed.

"Still something over seventy years older than you, Stark," Bucky said, shaking his head before heading out of the workshop. "Is there any pizza left?"

"Fridge. Third shelf down," Tony informed him. Bucky gave a thumbs up before disappearing up the stairs to eat something. Steve gave Tony a strange look. "What?"

"You've really been down here with Bucky all night?" he asked.

"Yeah, why? What's so hard to believe about that?" Tony asked.

"He doesn't really do well around people aside from me these days. Especially people who work with SHIELD. I'm pretty sure he hates SHIELD, and he isn't a hateful sort of person. The fact he chose to spend all night with you of all people, no offence, is pretty damn surreal," Steve said. Tony shrugged.

"I was the only one awake when Bucky was talking to JARVIS. And he wanted me to fix his arm up for him to stop it getting any worse and malfunctioning or something," Tony said as he stretched out his aching muscles. "Breakfast anyone? Bucky's got the right idea."

"Breakfast sounds great," Rhodey agreed, following Tony up the stairs. Steve sighed and followed, shaking his head slightly. At least this would count as a sign of Bucky getting better instead of worse.

Upon making up to the main floor, the men noticed Thor and Sam were now awake, and Natasha had joined them too, sat cradling a mug of steaming coffee in her hands.

"Morning gentlemen," the woman greeted, smiling softly. "Bucky's raiding the pizza. Better get in there if you want some before he finishes the lot."

"I heard that!" Bucky called.

"You were supposed to!" Natasha called back. Steve laughed, heading into the kitchen after Bucky. Rhodey plopped himself down on his previously occupied couch, and Tony just stood smiling in amusement. "So I heard you and Barnes were sleeping in the lab, Tony."

"What's wrong with that? We were working all night and fell asleep. No big deal," Tony said with a shrug.

"Find anything?" Sam asked. Thor was looking hopefully at them too. At this point, the rest of the team were pretty damn sure that he was desperate to have Loki brought home in one piece.

"Bucky found a few things that he needs to run by Banner first, but once he's done that, he can let you all know if we're any closer to finding Loki," Tony said.

"You do seem a little more confident about finding him today, man," Rhodey commented. "Are you any closer by any chance?"

"Like I said, when Barnes has run stuff by Banner, you guys will know. Until then, we sit and wait. And eat, too," Tony mused.

The group were soon sat around the coffee table in the living room, eating and discussing while coffee was passed around. Clint made an appearance at around eleven, and half an hour later, Bruce trudged in to join them, gladly accepting a mug of coffee from Thor. Nothing more about the research was said until after breakfast was done and evidence was cleared up. Once all was done, Bucky pulled Bruce aside, asking if he could unlock the lab for them so he could show him what he'd found. Bruce didn't hesitate to agree, following the ex-assassin back downstairs.

For something to do to be helpful, Natasha and Clint went with Rhodey and Sam to analyse the video and the audio further, just in case there was something small and easy to miss in them. That left Tony with Thor and Steve when Fury and Hill made the day's appearance both asking for coffee they could have, and complaining about something. Well, the complaining came from Fury. Hill just wanted her coffee for the morning to keep her alive.

"Nick, nice of you to join us this fine Malibu morning. What can I do for you?" Tony asked, sarcastically chirpy to get under the Director's skin a little.

"Is Barnes still here?" Fury asked.

"He's busy," Steve immediately said.

"Nice bug trick with his arm, by the way," Tony mused, watching the rage darken Fury's eyes. "Burnt out one of his circuits mind you, but it was easy as pie to fix. Now all he needs is his upgrade and he's good to go completely as his own person again."

"You need to stop meddling where you're not wanted nor needed, Stark," Fury warned.

"Actually, Director, Bucky _asked_ me to fix his arm up for him because he hated the constant glitches he got whenever you'd been near him. It's for his own safety and peace of mind that I fixed up his busted arm for him," Tony said with a shrug. "Now, I know damn well you didn't come here just to bug Bucky and steal my coffee, so what did you want?"

"To see if you were having luck with whatever research you're currently doing," Fury mused. "We're finding a few things, but it's taking longer than we thought."

"Bucky found a few good things last night. He's currently having Banner analyse them and he went through them with me last night while I was working on his arm," Tony said. "Super spies are with Sam and Rhodey analysing the footage and the audio again in case we've fucked up royally and missed something."

"Tony!" The engineer spun around at the sound of his voice. Natasha was hurrying into the room with a tablet in her hand.

"Yes dear?" Tony mused.

"Not now," she said, hitting him as soon as she was within reaching distance. "I found something. We missed it before because it was at the very, very end of the video and we weren't fast enough to catch it before the video shut off before. I had JARVIS slow the video right the way down in case we missed little actions, and then we saw this."

"Saw what?" Tony asked, taking the tablet from her. "Oh boy. JARV? Have Barnes come up here a minute. I want to know if he recognises this at all before I show Banner."

**Author's Note:**

> You guys are amazing. I don't deserve any of you.  
> Thank you for sticking by me and dealing with my shit and my irregular updating.  
> Much love <3
> 
> Let me know what you think, share this with your friends and leave me kudos and stuff please? ^3^


End file.
